Session 5. When Continents Collide

Learning Goals

During this session, you will have an opportunity to build understandings
to help you:

Relate plate tectonics to the formation of mountains

Describe two ways that mountains can form at convergent
plate boundaries

Video Overview

From the volcanoes that encircle the Pacific Ocean in the “ring
of fire” to the peaks of the Himalayas at the “top of the
world,” mountains are perhaps Earth’s most dramatic landforms.
Can we find a pattern in how and where mountains form? In this session,
we build upon our understanding of plate tectonics to take a closer look
at the connection between plate boundaries and mountain formation. In
the process, we continue our exploration of rocks and the stories they
can tell.

Video Outline

The video opens with a mystery: How is it possible that marine fossils
are found on the world's highest continental mountain, Mount
Everest? To answer this question, we join geologist Dr. Keith Klepeis
on a forensic
rock investigation in Vermont. Starting with a metamorphic
rock,
we examine some of the features in rocks that provide evidence of the
geological
history of a location. From this evidence, we reconstruct the
events that led to the formation of the Appalachian Mountains. We then
apply this
understanding to the formation of other mountain
ranges and in
doing so solve our marine fossil mystery.

Throughout the video, we watch
interviews with children that
reveal their ideas about the forces that can fold rock, how
mountains form, and our Mount Everest marine fossil mystery.
We also visit science consultant Duke Dawson
and the fifth graders at The Goddard School of
Science and Technology in Worcester, Massachusetts as they
construct a model for mountain building. We listen as they discuss
their
ideas about
the different shapes that characterize the Earth's surface,
called landforms,
and the forces that sculpt them. We observe them grappling
with the question of how mountains form, and follow their work
as they manipulate
dough
and wood models that represent colliding continents.